


Shuddering

by TrishaCollins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galaxy Garrison, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mostly hurt, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-06 01:09:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15875388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: They thought they lost everything when the Galra first arrived, but in the days following the occupation as the Garrison scrambles to survive, they discover that they are wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

The fact of the matter was that they were the only ones trained with the modified tech. They were the only ones that could go. 

That was what the brass had decided anyway, with little more than a jaunty wave and a supply list. 

It was hard not to be bitter, jammed into the doorway of a hospital that smelled like death with Kinkade pressed against his back. Because where else would people go when the world ended? He had stepped through corpses, their flesh melting in the heat, so many that the vermin hadn’t even gotten them yet. The Galra had no use for the injured. They had died where they hid. 

He could taste the bile on the back of his tongue, convinced he could smell it through the filters on the mask. 

“Griffin.” Kinkade leaned down. “Where are you?”

“Jammed in a doorway with Galra firing at us.” He snarled, feeling the adrenaline as it pulsed through his skull. At least Lief had gotten what they came for – the medications that they couldn’t replicate without the viral samples that the Garrison didn’t have. That was what they were here in hell for. Viral samples. Cultures. Before the generator malfunctioned and the vital knowledge was lost forever. 

“Good.” Kinkade moved, hand cuffing his shoulder and threw him as hard as he could across the hallway. 

Automatically, he tucked into a roll, mind not quite caught up with what was happening. There was a boom behind him, his suit registered multiple impacts, though none of them heavy enough to cause significant harm. Then silence. 

No firing, nothing. His back was against something solid. The air was thick with dust. 

“Griffin?! I heard an explosion! Where are you?” Rezavi’s voice was sharp on his comm. 

He was too stunned to respond. 

“Griffin! Status!” Rezavi’s 

“I’m ok. Kinkade?” He checked himself over, getting his feet under him. 

Silence on the comms. 

“I found you.” Rezavi said. “You need to go up, you went down a floor – did the explosion cause a collapse?”

“I guess so. I can’t hear any Galra.” He wiped the grime off his faceplate. “Kinkade?” 

“No response.” Lief reported, calm.

“Kinkade?” If he’d gone down a floor, then what had happened with Kinkade? Where was he? A bubble of tension was building in his chest. Kinkade had thrown him. Out of range, probably, of whatever Kinkade had seen that he hadn’t. Kinkade had saved him. 

“Head west, Griffin.” Rezavi directed him.

“Can you see Kinkade?!” He demanded. 

“Head west, Griffin. There’s a set of stairs that look clear. No Galra.” Rezavi’s voice was firm.

“Kinkade?” His voice broke a little on the comms. “Kinkade! RYAN!” 

Nothing.

No response.

“West, Griffin. About a hundred yards. There’s a set of emergency stairs. Climb them.” Her voice didn’t shake, it was firm.

“We have to get him.” His voice sounded wrong to his own ears.

“We need to complete the mission. We’re on a time limit, Griffin. These samples won’t survive in the heat.” She sounded so polished, so firm. 

“Rezavi, we need to get Kinkade.” He found his weapon, he got up. His body was on autopilot. Something crunched under his feet, but he didn’t let himself think about what it was. The stairs made sense, he could make it back to where he was and find Kinkade.

“Griffin, move.” 

He followed his orders, trying the door on the next level. Blocked. His scanners indicated completely. “Rezavi, I need you to find me a route around. I need to get back to Kinkade.” His voice still sounded weird.

“The rest of the hospital has collapsed, Griffin. Get out of there. There’s a cruiser inbound.”

“We’re not leaving him.” Calm. Somehow. 

“We can’t help him now.” Rezavi was quiet. 

“No. We have to.” Kinkade had saved him, was his partner, was his roommate. “We have to, Rezavi.”

“Three stories, Grififn. Go.”

He felt his breath shudder through him, heard a few alarms in his relay go off because his breathing was out of sync. He waited, a minute, two, hand pressed against the door that led to nowhere. 

Move. 

He did, feeling like every single step damned him to hell.


	2. Gasping

It was all stupid Keith’s fault. He knew it because everyone before now had told him so. It was Keith's fault.

Keith had a temper. Keith was weird. Keith wasn't bright, he wasn't good, he never turned this homework in and he always showed up late to school if he showed up at all. Keith was the worst at everything and he - James - was the best at everything. Keith shouldn't even be here. The Garrison had failed to get that memo. All of them. They saw Keith as something with worth. Someone to help and praise or maybe that was just the starvation rations talking. His hands are shaking, his vision was blurry and somehow Stupid Keith was still beating his scores. Stupid Keith was somehow making grades here that he had never made before. He was turning in his homework. He was answering questions in class. He refused to step back into his place.

"The way I see it there's the door if you want it. If you're done. We're done. I’ll put as much as you do into your advancement." Iverson's flat, unimpressed expression was the thing of nightmares.

"I don't understand why you're doing this. I'm not a troublemaker. It's him, it's always been him, and it’s been him since we were kids. I'm as good as pilot as he is. You don’t need him, sir."

Iverson sat back. "The two of you are two sides of the same problem. He doesn't see there being a team at all that he has to stick with and you want to make a scapegoat and neither of those are tenable. If you can't recognize the strengths in the weakest person in your unit then your unit will fail. That's how it is. If you can't recognize that then whatever leadership potential that you have is going nowhere. So I am going to keep this up. Whatever punishment you get, he gets. Whatever he gets, you get. Eventually either one of you is going to give up or the two of you will realize that in hurting each other you're only hurting yourself and you will back it down."

"It is not fair." He mumbled. "You don't understand what he's like. He violent, wild. He won't listen to anyone. He bit a teacher once."

"That remains to be seen. What will become of Keith or any of you cadets is a long way off of being determined, Griffin. The one thing I am refusing to let continue is the two of you and this game."

He wanted to call his parents. The moment he did, he knew Iverson would back off. "He's cheating somehow. There's no way he is preforming this well. He's sneaking food."

Iverson sighed. "Or maybe, Griffin, he's used to making due with less. He is under the same medic as you are. Same sugar tests every meal."

That for some reason stopped him. "What do you mean?"

"There are two sorts of people who can't abide by people. The more natural sort know how to get by." Iverson waved his hand at his phone. "Kogane has nobody to call to beg for help. Only a lt. who sees his potential but who couldn't be his legal guardian even if he wanted. You're in control. You can wuss out and admit you can't hack any time you want."

"Sir." He muttered, feeling flushed. "No thank you, sir."

"Whatever that teacher told you about Kogane doesn't apply here. I care about what you two do here. Under my supervision. Shirogane knows where my patience ends, he knows how far to push me on that Cadet. You have neither his seniority nor his restraint."

He nodded, swallowing hard. "Yes sir.'

"Dismissed, cadet." Iverson dropped his gaze to his paperwork.

He swayed for a moment, trying to find the words that would make his world snap back into order again. But there was nothing.

Calorie restrictions were a beast to fight with.

Kinkade and Lief were waiting for him outside, Ryan managing a questioning look toward the door that encompassed everything.

"I'm still restricted and on extra sim time." He muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"What is it with you two?" Ryan asked, thoughtful.

"He's stupid and I don't fall for his fucking tricks." Except that wasn't true  
Maybe. Keith wasn't causing the same sort of trouble here, just keeping to himself.

It was a hard sort of thing to run headlong into - Keith's unworthiness was one of those facts of life. After like second grade. Keith had vanished that summer, had come back in 5th grade suspicious and weird and ready to fight. And after that all of the teachers agreed that he was no good. He could remember countless school days ending with Keith still writing lines on the board. Except there had never been a car waiting for Keith to get done with his latest detention.

Calorie restrictions were going to drive him crazy.

Ryan caught his shoulder when he swayed. "Maybe lay off?"

He liked the shape of Ryan, more upright and solid than he was. "Maybe."

"What so you gain trying to convince them that your middle school principal wasn't a nut? She isn't here to give you a gold star for toeing the line." Ryan's voice was soft and warm against his ear. 

"Yeah. Can we eat yet?" Leaning on Ryan made the world spin less. Iverson was right. His body didn't work like this. He needed to lay off.

"You're going to have to wake up first, James." The warmth of Ryan's voice was almost a kiss on his throat.

"You'll be gone." He muttered, finding himself pressing closer to his best friend.

"So will Keith. We call that 'growth'." Ryan's knuckles grazed his cheek, but just before their lips met-

"Griffin? You with us? I think he's back, doctor."

Blearily, he swept the recovery room, looking for Kinkade. Commander Holt was in the corner, arms crossed, face concerned.

"Kinkade?" He rasped into the oxygen mask. 

 

"Your mission was a success, but your comrade was lost. Your fellows managed to get you back in time." Sanda's voice was calm, undercutting the message she delivered. "No life signs have been detected since the explosion."

"No." He thought he whispered it, but Sanda's tension and the sudden rawness in his throat implied it might have been louder.

"Control yourself, cadet." Sanda's ordered, voice cracking like a whip.

"We have to go back." His throat hurt. "We have to find him. Commander."

"While cadet Kinkade's loss is a tragedy we cannot risk more personnel retrieving a body." Sanda said, hands behind her back. "Take this time to recover."

"He's not dead. He isn't. Commander Holt!" He stared at Sam, pleading with him, begging for help.

"Sedate him. He's irrational." Sanda’s coolness made him desperate. Kinkade was still out there, waiting for them to find him. Hurt, probably, his suit damaged so it would be harder to find him. They couldn’t leave him out there. They couldn’t abandon him. 

"N-" was all he managed before a prick to his arm stole the rest of his shout.


	3. Running

They kept sedating him. He would fight, he would beg, but they kept him under until his body had finished healing. 

Sanda wouldn’t let him go after Kinkade. His dreams were full of death and dying, and the cloying scent of those that had perished beyond the shield. 

“James? Wake up. Come on.” Rezavi patted his cheeks, then smacked him so hard he felt it in his teeth. “Come on, we’ve only got five until the patrol comes this way. Wake up.” 

He blinked, dazed and still drugged as she helped him into his suit – underwear included, though she didn’t comment on it beyond “I always assumed you to be a boxer sort of man, guess I was wrong.” 

He gargled at her impotently, nearly unbalancing when she shoved a boot on his foot, and slumping into the wall when she tipped him the other way and pulled a hat over his eyes. 

Then they were off, lurching and stumbling their way out of a security perimeter with him no wiser about what their purpose was than he’d started. 

“Are we clear?” Rezavi asked the air.

“You have .28 seconds left, but yes. You have cleared the patrol. Next patrol will arrive in exactly ten minutes.” Her voice was calm over the ear piece his face was half mashed against. 

“Lief? Wassa….” 

“Don’t try to talk, Griffin. You’re drooling.” Rezavi continued to half guide, half drag him, occasionally turning when Lief gave an order over the headset. 

He had no idea how they got to their ready room. They had come a completely unfamiliar way, Lief sitting with the screen of her nav-comm as the only illumination.

Rezavi started pulling his armor on, dressing him briskly. “I’m tired of giving up on the people I care about.”

He nodded dumbly. 

“I’m tired of the brass writing my people off.” She continued, pulling the gloves on his hand. “We’re going to go find Kinkade.”

“Ok.” His tounge felt thick and stupid in his mouth. 

“Lief managed to pick up some faint echoes from his suit, we’re going to steal one of the jeeps and use that to track him. Probably they’ll throw us in the brig when we get back.” Rezavi’s voice was calm, almost too calm. “But we’re not going to leave him out there to die.”

She jammed the helmet onto his head, and the system immediately started trying to sober him up. 

He probably vomited, the suit was pretty good at handling bodily fluids. 

“Alive?”

He shook his head. “Hungover. But yeah. It’s stimming me. I’ve probably got twelve hours, maybe.” To save Kinkade. 

He had to save Kinkade.

“It will only take us four to get back to the hospital.” Rezavi’s smile wasn’t nice, wasn’t happy, it was brutal with the edge of too much expected of her, and the edge of civilization at risk of crumbling. He saw it in the mirror sometimes, that manic sort of calm. 

He should send her back to the barracks, maybe, tell her to rest. He should do a lot of things. “We’re taking two?” 

“Deuce the most agile in the field. So yeah. We’re taking Deuce. Come on, Lief, all hands on deck.” 

“Rezavi.”

She stiffened. 

He grabbed her arm. “Thanks.”

“We’re all we’ve got.” The smile softened into something almost real. “Nobody else cares but us.” 

“Then we’ll have to care enough for all of them.” 

“Yeah.” She whispered. “No more leaving behind.”

“Right.” He gave her arm a squeeze, then let go. Ryan needed them.


End file.
